No Comeback for Porous, Powerless Niners

Published 7:00 pm, Saturday, January 11, 2003

With 50 seconds left in the first half Sunday, the San Francisco 49ers had two timeouts, good field position and a 22-point deficit to start erasing.

Instead, they headed for the locker room.

After a 9-yard run by Garrison Hearst pushed San Francisco near midfield, Terrell Owens screamed and slapped his helmet in disbelief as the 49ers milled around the field before coach Steve Mariucci led his team away.

"We needed to regroup on offense," Mariucci said. "We had to figure out who was healthy. I had to get this team off the field. Momentum was shifting in a big way."

Unfortunately for Mariucci, the shift was permanent. Injuries, turnovers and bad luck all played roles as San Francisco's frustrating season ended in a 31-6 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the second round of the playoffs.

The reasons for the 49ers' collapse were some of the same ones that might cost Mariucci his job despite a second straight winning season, an NFC West title and a rally from a 24-point hole to beat the New York Giants last week.

The offense started slowly, never got rolling _ and never scored a touchdown. Under constant pressure, Jeff Garcia missed open receivers, threw three interceptions and couldn't make use of Owens, who finished with four catches for 35 yards as San Francisco was shut out in the second half.

"Nothing seemed to go right today," Garcia said. "When the first quarter didn't go the way we wanted, we started to try to force things and be urgent, but it never did us any good."

For Owens, the 49ers' All-Pro receiver, it was a performance reminiscent of last season's playoff loss at Green Bay, in which he had just four catches. The game so infuriated Owens that he demanded to leave the team.

A smiling Owens didn't appear overly upset in the 49ers' locker room Sunday, though he refused several interview requests before hopping on the team bus.

"You'd love to get all of your guys involved, but T.O. wasn't the only guy who wasn't involved today," Garcia said. "Nobody got involved, actually."

Even when Garcia got the ball to his receivers, bad things happened. A pass ricocheted off Owens' knee and was intercepted by Dwight Smith on the first play of the second half.

But the offense's struggles were relatively minor compared to the disastrous play of the Niners' young defense. San Francisco allowed 69 points and 775 yards in two playoff games, leaving its offense playing catchup for much of the postseason.

San Francisco simply ran out of good defensive backs when starting cornerback Ahmed Plummer was knocked out of the game with a dislocated right shoulder on the Buccaneers' second series. Jason Webster, the other starter at cornerback who sprained his ankle during the regular-season finale, was a pregame scratch.

Rookie Mike Rumph and Rashad Holman became the 49ers' cornerbacks. Starting safety Zack Bronson also sat out most of the second half with pain in his foot, which he broke in the regular season.

"Considering the circumstances, I don't think we did too bad," defensive coordinator Jim Mora said. "They didn't do anything offensively in the second half, or even really in the second quarter. We just got behind too early."

Tampa Bay held the ball for more than 30 minutes in the first three quarters and pounded every tier of San Francisco's defense. The 49ers used a flexible matchup zone in an attempt to camouflage their holes, but the Buccaneers patiently picked away, converting on 10 of their first 14 third downs.

Now Playing:

The game even ended appropriately, with Garcia missing Owens in the back of the end zone as time expired. Owens jogged off the field without shaking hands.